


Connect Nothing With Nothing

by Smilla



Category: Without a Trace
Genre: 2006, Addiction, Angst, M/M, Post-Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-01
Updated: 2010-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-08 14:15:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/pseuds/Smilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin has managed to drag Danny into his madness, he knows it as clearly as he knows that Danny doesn't deserve it; and still he keeps doing it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connect Nothing With Nothing

i.

Martin gravitates toward the phone like pulled by some inexplicable force. He is still dressed from work, tie strangling at his neck, but somehow he can't find a reason to take it off. He's talked to his sponsor to avoid making the call he knows he's going to make, and no matter how much he resists, he knows, from the way his eyes can't stray from the phone, that he is going to press those numbers. He busies himself drinking water, then making coffee that cools, untouched, in his mug.

Finally, he dials the number he knows by memory; they sing in his ear like a broken song.

 

ii.

Britt had been a model daughter that morning; a rebellious teen in the early afternoon, officially missing that evening. All through numbers and faces and phone-calls that Martin painfully catalogues in lists and three columns of yellow papers on the conference table. Numbers are a too solid walls against which the hope of finding her crashes. But hope dodges still around Britt's parents, sitting on the bench in the alleyway.

Numbers are unforgiving and mark hours that pass too fast. Martin knows they are _late, late, late_.

iii.

Danny picks up the call after the first ring, but he doesn't talk when he answers his phone. There's noise in the background, voices and laughter and music in the distance, and Martin imagines him in a crowded bar, surrounded by people, women and men too close, touching and marking Danny with their smell. He is not surprised that Danny has sought a crowd, but he doesn't like to think how Danny's night would have ended had he not called.

"Danny," he says simply, so Danny won't hear how his voice trembles. After a brief pause, Danny hangs up.

 

iv.

Britt's eyes shine from the blown-up picture on the board. Blond hair and high cheekbones spattered with freckles dark like dots of ink. Martin draws a black line and writes on it the recent scraps of information they've gathered; numbers and names unravelling events that might be useful or a violation of her privacy. He steps back and sees that the number four resembles a nine. Slowly he erases the line and writes it again.

At the fourth try, he's happy with how it looks.

v.

Martin drops the phone on the couch, covers it with his suit jacket, leaves a trail of clothes like road stones marking his passage toward the bathroom. He lets the water run hot, stays there until his skin burns, feels raw and scraped and dry. He turns off the water when the spray hits his body like piercing needles. He wipes steam off the mirror and looks at his body. It's red-stained from the hot water and sliced in half by the long scar on his stomach.

The irony, Martin reflects, is that the scar is the only visible sign of what he's always known.

vi.

The black lines point toward Britt. She looks at Martin questioning him. Martin looks back, wishes for answers. The shift in the air makes Danny known. He enters taking up too much space, arms distant from his body and a swagger in his hips. He walks confidently but for a hitch in his steps only Martin can see. Danny stops behind -- space empty between them. Martin is tempted to ask him Britt's same questions.

Danny stands still and when Martin turns he doesn't know for sure if it's Britt that's put that mournful look on his face.

vii.

The towel is too small to wipe his body dry, and Martin gives up halfway down his legs, lets the air do its job. He lies down on his bed but he's dry by the time he hears the door open in the hallway. Danny stops by the bathroom, not bothering to close the door. He flushes the toilet and Martin jumps at the metallic noise of water running down the pipes.

He looks at the door and an infinite time elapses before Danny is framed in it.

viii.

They walk out of the bullpen in silence and mix with the agents coming and going; Martin wonders if they, at least, are saving someone today. If the purpose in their steps, their faces set and focused, are going to do someone some good. The elevator groans then shudders to a stop. The parking lot is cool and it should be a welcome sensation after the stale air of the elevator, but it smells of cold concrete and Martin shudders. A flicker of memory and the smell of a grave hits his nostrils. He turns left, then right, looking for dead flowers.

Danny stops at their car, takes the keys from Martin's unresisting hands.

ix.

The bedside lamp is not enough to reveal Danny's eyes. Danny looks down, makes sure Martin can't see them even when he is beside the bed. He unties Martin's towel from his hips, traces a finger briefly over Martin's cock, and then heads up to the pulsing point in his neck. His eyes never leave Martin's belly until he closes the distance and Danny takes Martin's cock in his mouth.

Martin feels the hum of a groan low in Danny's throat, only Danny's thumb and forefinger gripping hard at the base of his cock stops him from coming from the feel of Danny's breath alone.

x.

They pass hookers and drug dealers; a group of teens in a corner push each other. The car goes through a street striped black and white by phosphoric lights. Martin sees the light flash behind his closed lids. When he looks at Danny, his profile is hard and still, looking ahead, forward, and he can fool himself that Danny's eyes are determined.

"The lead we have is weak," Danny says after a while. Martin acknowledges the awkward comfort with a nod Danny doesn't see.

xi.

Skin against skin is a devastating experience. Danny has hard bones that grate against his own with unforgivable strength. Their cocks are lined together; Danny's thrusting in the hollow of Martin's navel. They kiss sloppily, teeth and spit, and the sweat on Danny's brow slips on his cheek. Danny's fingers are still around his cock and Martin doesn't know if he is angry or grateful for it.

Danny grinds down so hard that Martin is sure their bodies are going to blend any moment now, muscles and bones and tendons fusing together.

xii.

The house looms dark and half crumbling; the path is littered with garbage that the wind chases at their feet. Danny stops him from going ahead with a sharp look and a warning hand on his arm. Martin reflects that they touch only in the dark. The door is not locked and creaks when Danny opens it. It doesn't matter; they find Britt on her knees, mouth wrapped around a man's cock and eyes barred against the pain in her hair.

This time Danny doesn't stop him when he kicks the man in the back of his knee.

xiii.

They are sucking each other when Danny stabs a finger inside his ass. It burns, feels good but not quite, too sudden and the finger is too dry. Martin moans around Danny's cock even as it's gliding out of his mouth, feels it sliding along his chest. A long caress without hands, then the only contact is Danny's finger.

It's not enough; it's never going to be enough.

xiv.

Britt sits rigidly on the only chair, unaware of the people around her. She seems unaware of Danny, too, who's talking in her ear with a cascade of words Martin can't make out above the buzz of voices. Even if he can't hear Danny, he imagines, though, the lulling tone of his voice, the soft quality of it. Sometimes her eyes flicker in his direction, and the rage in them burns high and red. Danny distracts her with the right words, calms again her fidgeting hands.

Martin wants to know what he's saying.

xv.

It's not tender, not by a long shot. It's hard and the rhythm is off, slow deep pushes of Danny's hips followed by erratic thrusts. In and out and Martin's pushing back, tries for leverage on tangled bedclothes. Danny puts an arm under Martin's chest, raises him and it becomes impossibly deep. Too much and still Martin wants for more, hooks his arms around Danny's and grinds down.

Words escape Danny's mouth and they break the silence.

xvi.

Danny doesn't trust Martin to drive so he ends up in the back seat with Britt. She is as stiff as he feels and the street lights wash out her face, reveal bruised eyes, a deep wariness and her fear. Martin scoots farther from her to give an illusion of space in the cramped car. She doesn't look at him, but she sighs deeply when he moves and Martin takes comfort for having done something right. Eventually.

Danny veers sharply to the left and his voice has a frayed texture when he tells nobody they have arrived.

xvii.

Martin comes with a mute cry. Danny comes with a curse, trembling like he's hurting. They fall on the bed boneless and not sated, Danny's hand pinned under Martin's body. There is still tension in Danny, an inability to relax that mirrors Martin's, they stand rigid and still but for Danny's lips moving softly at the base of his neck.

Martin tries very hard to let himself hear the words.

xviii.

By the time they are on the twelfth floor, the craving settles deeply in the marrow of his bones. It eats at his skin and makes his steps falter. It strikes where it hurts more, feeds the rage he feels for Britt's parents fucking _smiling_ when they hug Britt. How they can't see that the daughter they are holding is glued together only by the illusion of unmarred skin? They don't see her bruised lips, the dark hollows in her eyes? The accusations.

Martin wonders why they stubbornly insist on finding them when they are not capable of doing the saving.

xix.

Martin has managed to drag Danny into his madness, he knows it as clearly as he knows that Danny doesn't deserve it; and still he keeps doing it. Danny is breathing, slow and deep, eyes closed and skin glowing -- a paler shadow in the pale light -- his eyes are tightly shut, and the previous rigidity has left his body. It is always a surprise when Danny brushes his arm against Martin's, takes Martin's fingers in his own. Martin always forces himself not to move, because this, whatever it is, is not meant to be about affection.

He knows that his stillness makes Danny withdraw again in his anger.

xx.

Jack hands the man's interrogation to Viv and Sam with an unexpected wicked smile, and Martin sees in the stiff set of Viv's shoulders when she walks, slow and steady without waiting for Samantha to follow, that Britt has cracked more than just Martin's own painful mask of sanity. He looks at Britt again through the blown-up, pixelated picture pinned on the board: fresh smile and clear eyes and the youthful openness of her face that are no more. He feels better only when her picture is buried in the bottom of the box.

Danny appears at his back, weary, undone. He says nothing and then walks slowly away.

xxi.

Danny's body while he dresses is a dark outline against the window and the milky pre-dawn light. The silence settles heavily on Martin's skin, cools it down with words left unspoken. Danny stops, lingers for an eternity over some invisible edge, hands unmoving on the lapels of his shirt, and Martin would turn on the lamp if his limbs weren't so laden with the fear of knowing for sure what it is in Danny's eyes.

"The next time you call, I won't come," Danny always says before going. Martin watches him disappear in the grainy darkness but doesn't call him on the lie.

 

\--


End file.
